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May 2014 Entry - Rudimentary Raiding Map

Hi all, this is my first post here and my first mapping challenge entry! I don't know if I'll contribute much to these forums, but I thought this challenge looked interesting and wanted to give it a go.

The concept is pretty basic: A primitive tribe of monstrous folk live in the mountains and prey on several surrounding human communities for their food and supplies. They don't have a well developed written language, so they've marked points of interest on their maps using pictograms and other symbols. It's like a hobo code. They're mostly interested in food and threats, so the symbols include bread and livestock (farmers), fish, villages and cities etc. They also mark on weapons to indicate how dangerous the people are in those areas.

It's a small map because they travel by foot and this is basically their whole world and it lacks sophistication because they do.

In the WIP images below there's a photo of my first doodles for this idea, then my Photoshop progress. I'm still adding in all the lines and then I plan to add more painting and shading and other details. There's more work to do on everything actually, but you can see the direction I'm taking it.

Hi, welcome to the forum! You've perfectly captured the challenge theme, in my opinion. Nice job on making it look handmade. One thing I think could be improved, though, is that it looks like it's hovering above the ground.

Hi, welcome to the forum! You've perfectly captured the challenge theme, in my opinion. Nice job on making it look handmade. One thing I think could be improved, though, is that it looks like it's hovering above the ground.

Thanks Lingon. And yeah, I'll work on the presentation last I just wanted to get the idea in there of a map on the ground.

A little more progress. I'm really happy with the mountain region, but not with the lines that make up most of the rest of the map. I think I may have to hand draw some and scan them in to get the look I need, rather than just using my tablet. Funnily enough it actually looks better at full resolution when you can see the brush textures. I also want to expand the ocean so it takes up more of the left side of the map I think.

Welcome, Foomandoonian, and have a smidgen of rep for jumping in with both feet - map in very first post!

As far as contest thread mechanics you'll want to put the ### Latest WIP ### marker in front of every image you post as next step in progress of your entry. No harm that some lack that, but anything that even *might* be the last one ... like if life intervenes and you don't make it back the next day as you intend to ... needs the marker for a script to scrape up all the , well LATEST works in progress, to index for voting.